Inwangsan, Seoul

Hike up a pretty little hill in Seoul with my sister, who is visiting from Canada.

Africa

Please watch this video. And after you watch it, you can click on part 2 and 3 as well.

I have fallen in love with the singer K'Naan, who is portrayed in the documentary, as he goes around Kenya, showing life in the slums. I love his music...he is at once poignant, sad, and joyous. Definitely the most positive hip hop I've ever heard, but also, so heart-breaking, because he sings about real problems (he was born and spent his childhood in Somalia). Look him up on Youtube if you're interested, or click here to listen to one of the saddest and most beautiful songs, about his childhood sweetheart, Fatima, who got killed by a gunman. If you click on 'more info' at the top right, you can also see the lyrics to the song.

This blog has sort of fallen to the wayside, as I knew it would. I'm not going to give up on it, but posting will be scarce, as it has been. I simply can't be bothered spending an hour on a post anymore. But when I feel like it, I will, so don't give up.

I recently made friends with a Senegalese drummer who lives in Korea teaching music. His English is ... not so great to say the least ... but his French is 100%! So we've made friends and since we don't live in the same city, we talk on the phone several times a week in French. Which is fabulous! (thank you Canadian French Immersion program!) Him and his friends are continually telling people to go to Senegal, and how wonderful it is there. They are so chilled out and happy and positive. I really like talking with them.

And so, between him, listening to K'Naan these days, and reading the most heart-breaking book ever, A Long Way Gone (Memoirs of a Boy Soldier) by Ishamael Beah (who lived in Sierra Leone until his late teens), I have been feeling the weight of Africa pressing on me. And I have no idea what to do about it, but there has to be an answer, and I don't believe in extremes. I don't think pouring millions of dollars into the continent will solve the problem, but I don't think doing nothing will solve it either. I don't know if I will ever know the answer, or what this white, middle-class Canadian is supposed to do.

That's what I'm thinking about these days.

Art exhibit

Friday in Iran

Saving Africa's Witch Children

I wish things like this did not exist in today's world. These videos are hard to watch...beautiful, lovely, tiny children abandoned (if they're lucky), or more likely abused and/or killed because some religious nut brands them as witches. There are something like 7 parts total, and they are all worth watching. Go to www.youtube.com and search for "Saving Africa's Witch Children Part 2" to watch the second part. And also go to Stepping Stones Nigera's website to see how you can help the saint that started saving these children...a man who went there on business, found out what was happening, and opened a refuge for them.

Rest in peace

As you likely heard, former South Korean president, Roh Moo-hyun, committed suicide last weekend. His funeral was held today. On Sunday night, I was walking past Jogye-sa, the main Buddhist temple here in Seoul, and found hundreds of people queueing with flowers in hand, waiting to bow before his photo to show their respects. The windows of the temple were open, and a monk was chanting, as you can hear. Unfortunately the amplified chanting overpowers the saddest music ever, which was playing near his effigy. You can sort of hear it if you listen well. It was touching to see all these people bowing and crying and laying flowers. I walked past other, similar, memorials later this week. It seems they were set up all over Korea in temples and palaces.

Yufo Temple (Jade Buddha Temple)

By now you should know how much I adore temples. Seeing as my 12 travelmates weren't particularly interested in temple-visiting, I woke up early one day and taxied myself to Yufo Temple, which was heavily into preparations for Lunar New Year:







A morning trip I'm glad I made!

Look uuuuuup!

...to the top of the Shanghai Grand Hyatt, home of one of the highest bars in the world, "Cloud 9."
Our Seoul par-tay:

...and counting!And, up to the 87th, here we are, with a gorgeous view of the city:


In the end, we settled for the Piano Bar on the mere 53rd floor ;) because there were no good seats left in the clouds. :)

Shanghai, or "Red Lanterns Everywhere"

When I visited Shanghai, it was Lunar New Year, so there were red lanterns hanging from nearly every building. So pretty!








On our first day, we went inside this massive marketplace/park to have a look-see. The architecture was stunning. And yes, that is a DQ. We don't have DQ in Korea (and so we shouldn't...I'm not a big fan of massive American chains invading and taking over the world), but I (hypocritically I think), did have a Blizzard...my first in years. ^^ Just so you know, I also had loads of the Chinese street food first. ;)
...but this is one street food I did NOT have. Take a close look.
Yes...it's meatball soup, with the head of the cow stewing in it. hehehe I opted for fried veggie dumplings instead...

Buddha's Parade

This image from the Globe and Mail's Day in Pictures. Always cool when you see something on national news that you were at. Next weekend is Buddha's Birthday, and there was a massive parade and ceremony last night (Sunday night) here in Seoul, not too far from me. I'll see if I can get together a little video clip for you. :)

Shanghai

Ah, 진자! (jinja!=exclamation word with many uses) I completely forgot to post about Shanghai. In Feb, I went with a big crew of people (friends and workmates) to this lovely city. Beijing and Shanghai couldn't be more different! Beijing is more low, old brick alleyways and loads of military and spies everywhere...Shanghai is much more cosmo. I really enjoyed this city! I will tell you more ... later! :)

Saturday's Sunset

...as seen from atop Gwanak Mtn, here:
Went hiking on Saturday up Gwanak Mtn in southern Seoul. Such a perfect day! Was something like 23C. There is a Buddhist monastery at the top (which was sort of in front of us and down a bit), and behind us there, you can see one little Buddhist room on a rock outcrop. It's decked out in lanterns these days because Buddha's Birthday is coming up.

Nice views of all of Seoul:

Below, part of the main monastery:
Inside a little building:

And inexplicable coils of razor wire behind some of the buildings. Very strange...hope you don't go hiking there at night and take a fall.Then on Sunday in the 25C weather, I visited another friend and sat on her rooftop for a few hours. :) This is the view from there:
Have a great week!! :)

Yay Canada

I live in such a pretty area of town now. It's not too built up (except around my school, as you saw). There are a lot of low brick homes built into the hill, and a lot of them are old, with the old-fashioned asian roofs. I must try to take a photo sometime. My area is also filled with diplomats, hence the reason I came across this flag as I took a little spin around the neighbourhood on my trusty Pink Wonder. Yay, a little piece of home. :)

Oasis

Oasis came to Seoul, and I went, and it was awesome! I heart Noel! This was the only picture I took before my $#@~ battery died. sigh...:P

Favourite photo from the last 24 hours

This photo taken from the Globe and Mail's, "Day in Photos" section from April 13.

Ah, Thailand. I loved it so much. I'm glad I wasn't there for any of the protests in November, or now.

My new job

Yet another video update...3rd time's a charm...

My new digs

Oh Bess-uh is a happy girl these days. I'm so glad I'm not working for a hagwon (cram academy) anymore. A real elementary school is where it's at! I love my new area, my new job, and yes, even my apartment is not too bad. It's waaaaaaay smaller than my last one, but I was spoiled by my last one, it being bigger than most teacher apartments in Korea. sniff. This one is nice though, and now that I've purchased many storage boxes in order to stack all my belongings in the ONE closet, I can actually live peacefully and happily in this little shoebox. Yay!

PS Here's all my worldly goods (except the ones I keep stored in my poor parents' sunporch) about to be transported across the city. My little old Korean mover was great! Not a word of English, he rang the doorbell promptly at 10am, motored in with crates on wheels, zoomed through my apartment piling everything into the crates, and by 11am we were on our way! Nice! Too bad unpacking wasn't so swift...

Moving On

Well...a year has come and gone, and it's time for this chick to move on! I'm moving tomorrow morning (erg. No like. But...my mover is coming with boxes and helping me pack! Yes! Korean-style rocks in this case, since I can think of few things more annoying than packing to move). Then on Monday, I start my new job at an elementary school. Whew! I will let you know how all this hectic-ness goes! For now though, I am not stressing, and am going to enjoy a glass of wine with my friend, on my last night in 송파구 (Songpa district).

Good-bye, T

Friends. Such pack animals, aren’t we? For I’m not sure I could go through my life without them. Somehow, in this strange, foreign land, I’ve found some of the best friends of my life, and this is one of them, T. One of the curses of living here (as a foreigner) is that one is constantly saying good-bye. It’s rare to find foreigners who stay more than 2-3 years before moving on, which is precisely what T is doing. We’ve been in Korea exactly the same amount of time, having landed, he from LA, me from NB, in Incheon together in 2007. Since we lived in the same complex, our favourite pastime was drinking wine and having long conversations about just about everything under the Asian sun. This year we didn’t see much of each other since I moved to the boondocks of eastern Seoul (and Incheon is Seoul’s western sister). But that didn’t matter. Each time we did get to hang out, it was as if we’d never been apart. Kind of a time-warp.

It was fitting that T’s last night in Seoul was celebrated on Valentine’s Day. Beyond all the silly pink hearts and candies and flowers, it’s a day to celebrate love. Love is the reason for everything good that exists on this little blue planet. The love of my friends is one of best things about my life! They are pretty much the reason I love life so much. Who needs a better reason to party than to celebrate a brilliant friend, a wonderful two years, and the start of a new (this time Japanese) adventure? So, celebrate we did! It was a fabulous (and very long!) night and one of the best good-byes I’ve ever said. But hand in hand with the happiness and joyfulness was, of course, the sadness. I don’t cry often, but last night was an exception, and I guess that says how much I think of T. Of course we will always be excellent friends, but I find it hard to imagine T not in Incheon, not running into him randomly in Seoul, not being able to meet when we want. It’s sad. However, Japan is not far, so I’m sure you’ll be reading a post about a weekend in Tokyo in the not-too-distant future.

Good-bye T, I love you. I’m so happy fate threw us together for this short time. The Land of the Rising Sun awaits.

Phuket

So to finish off, we have the beginning of my trip, which was only a few days in Phuket. Although it was touristy, we had a good time laying in the sun, and we made friends with some Thai guys who worked on the beach. They were the reason I so enjoyed my time here...we had a good time talking to them during the day (while they worked), and then hanging out with them again in the evenings. It's too bad we didn't stay longer and get to know them better. They were the only Thai we had any real contact with our entire trip. Anyhoo, here are a few more pics for you, and then it's la korn na kha (farewell) to Thailand until I return next spring. :)
Personal babe-sized pool:
The beach is behind me there; loved staying right near the water! Our balcony looked down on a side street:
Ate copious amounts of amazing fruit the entire time, and also got served drinks in coconuts:

Ah, the life!

Koh Samui

So, after traveling over land for several hours, we came to THE smallest ferry dock ever and found ourselves amongst several groups of backpack-laden foreigners milling about. Not too much confusion about where to go, since there was only one slip. The boat rolled in, which is when we began to feel a little dubious. But, really, it wasn't too much different from my memories of riding a certain big hunk of decrepit white metal called the Princess of Acadia...except this one was about a 10th of its size. It really didn't look the part of a passenger ship; more like some kind of illegal transport vehicle.

Anyway, it really wasn't too bad, and before long we were belching our way through the Gulf of Thailand toward Koh Samui (Koh="island" in Thai).And munching on local delicacies:
So ya, I mentioned before I'm not exactly a big fan of this island. Or at least where we stayed...it was actually ridiculous. I felt like I was in some travel ad for packaged resort vacations. Speaking of which, here's where we stayed:

Our room was nice, and there was a short walkway to the beach.
And at night, the beach turned into a restaurant:So here are my 2 traveling companions on the beach. See what I mean...a narrow, tourist-laden stretch of sand with nere a Thai person to be seen. Adding to my disgruntled-coloured glasses is the fact that the weather was not exactly that great either.
But anyway, that's not to say I had a bad time! There's always cocktails. ;) And every drink comes with an orchid. Flowers are something that are not in short supply in Thailand:
Me and the resort kitten:
So on New Year's Eve, we took a ferry to an even smaller island called Koh Phangan, upon which you can find the biggest party in the world (I'm guessing). The whole beach is turned into one giant party, with thousands upon thousands of party-goers. Honestly...I didn't really like it that much. Again, westerners completely trashing a place which used to be pristine. sigh. And, this may look cool, but honestly...drinking and fire limbo? Am I just getting old, or does anyone else think this is perhaps slightly unwise? But anyway it makes a cool picture. ;)


And that's all you're getting for Koh Samui. Next time I go to Thailand, I'm going to less-westerner-frequented places.

Good morning February

So this morning (Sunday), I decided that having had a quiet weekend, I'd go welcome the new February sun from atop Mt. Acha here in Seoul. It's a pretty little mountain only 4 subways stops away from me, and from the top one can see both the east (where Seoul peters out into the mountainous countryside), and the west (downtown, lego-land Seoul, stretching as far as the eye can see).

Up I got at 6am (lord! we don't do that too often these days now do we?), and began the hike at 7am. Luckily, after a slight wrong turn (the beginning of the movie), I crested the ridge at precisely the moment of sunrise (around 7:40am). The dawn sky was misty and pink, and the sun rose, soft and red above the mountains in the east. I felt so lucky.

I was surprised at the number of people out at this unmentionable hour. Koreans do love to hike! It's the best time to go, because on weekends it's gets mighty crowded on the city mountains. I also seemed to be on an official training route for the ultra-fit; dozens of lean, mean, spandex-outfitted machines sprinted past me up and down the trails. I suppressed the urge to stare, open-mouthed, at their physical prowess. The human body is so amazing in what it is capable of.

Anyway, here's a clip of me saying hello to February...in time for you to say hello to your own February sun.

Sweet baby elephant

Wandering about amongst the crowds, traffic, and dirt of Bangkok, one can often see random elephants (adults and babies) plodding along with their owners. Their shtick is getting foreigners to pay for the novelty of feeding them. I hate the idea of it, and I feel badly for these great creatures of the forest. I was able to resist the monkey-toting boys on the beaches who do the same thing, but when this baby elephant walked by our outdoor restaurant, I couldn't help myself. I hadn't been feeling well, was grumpy, and generally wasn't feeling up to doing anything that involved walking or people. A few minutes with this lovely (non-human) animal made me feel better about life. Ah, cognitive dissonance.